IT has been said of football, comedy and cooking, that they are the new rock ‘n’ roll.

Not true. The new rock ‘n’ roll is cycling.

Evidence of this is the emergence of Bolton-based Team Leapfrog who lead British Cycling’s road race league table in the North West, and stand 38th in the country – all in their debut season.

A string of impressive results, including three race wins, has fuelled the belief that the team launched by Lee Bevan, boss of the Leapfrog IT and audio visuals company, can make a massive impact in the sport.

Bolton’s then category-three racer Mark Dziobon, aged 40, stormed to a win for Leapfrog in the Cycling Development North West road race at Wincham, in Northwich, recently.

As a result of that and other good finishes, Dziobon has now moved up to cat-two level.

His success followed an early-season win in March for cat-one Horwich biker Craig Battersby, also 40, at the Rossendale Road Club Hilly time trail at Clitheroe, and first place for cat-three Bolton racer John Bamford, 38, in the Saighton CDNW road race, also in Cheshire.

Battersby began working for the Leapfrog company two years ago, and, according to Bevan, one day went in to work with his head in his hands after sponsorship had fallen through on a team he had been racing with for three years.

“After he told me what had happened, it didn’t take me longer than 60 seconds to decide what I was going to do,” said Bevan. “But I didn’t tell him.

“The day after, we did a mini-business plan and now we’ve gone from having four riders to nine and it could’ve easily been more.

“I thought, if I’m going to do this, I’m going to use every ounce of marketing skill I possess.

“You look at other teams who have put an awful lot of money in, and we’ve got nine riders and a little business.

"But we can design kit, we’ve got our own photographers, we do video footage, put ourselves on facebook and ram ourselves that far down people’s throats, they’re sick of seeing us.

“You can hear them saying to the lads on the raceline ‘give us a break’.”

Bevan admits that when launching the team at the start of the season in February he did not expect to be leading the North West League by 40 points.

“There have been seven series (out of 15) and we have been at the top in the region since day one,” he said. “It wasn’t my goal originally to finish top, but now I’ve got the bug, it is.”

Bevan, who has one elite rider in Ben Dean who is ranked 35th best road racer in the country, is pledging to go all out to expand Team Leapfrog with women’s and junior teams planned for next season.

“I’m putting a proposal together this month that’s going to hit more than 100 companies,” he said.

“I think eight per cent of those will want to get involved, to be on either the car – I’m intending to invest in a new Jaguar estate – or on the kit, and I want to add more people to the team.

“I’ve been to every race this season, not just because I’m a sponsor. You’ve got a bunch of lads who need to feel wanted. I’m there taking pictures, I shake all their hands after the race, no matter where they come in the race.”

The Cycling Development competitions are split into two separate races. The elite, cat one and two riders take part in one while the cat three and four riders take part in the other.